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This work belongs to a series called ‘Paris Circus’, which reflect the excitement of Dubuffet’s return to the city after living in the countryside for seven years. In the intervening period, he had attempted to remove all human presence, including his own, from his work. The new Paris pictures, by contrast, were teeming with humanity. Dubuffet wrote: ‘The presence in them of the painter now is constant, even exaggerated. They are full of personages, and this time their role is played with spirit'.